"Dr. Doom" Marc Faber told CNBC on Tuesday that he owns gold even though the precious metal may be heading south.

"I don't think [gold] will go up right away, and we maybe have a correction of 10 percent or so on the downside," the publisher of The Gloom Boom & Doom Report said in a "Squawk Box" interview.

"But I see that governments will print money … so I want to have gold as an insurance policy."

In his January Market Commentary, Faber puts a price range on his gold call:

"... perhaps down to between $1550 and $1600 … I intend to increase my gold position on any further weakness although I am concerned that U.S. dollar strength could be a headwind for a strong gold rally."

As for the dollar, Faber said on CNBC, "In the beauty contest over the ugliest currency, the U.S. dollar is not winning." Still, he added, "I'd rather be in dollars at the present time than say, euros."

Faber also predicted a rather gloomy 2013 for stocks around the globe, pointing out what he sees as a "deterioration in the technicals of the [U.S.] market" and last year's huge increases from multi-year lows. On Friday, the S&P 500 Index closed at a five-year high.

"Money will shift from some of the relatively high-valued markets into markets that had a horrible performance," he said. "So as an investor, if you need to own stocks, then I'd be in Vietnam, in China and in Japan."

In his commentary, Faber wrote that he's leaning toward the bearish camp but with this caveat:

"I am also mindful that corporations and wealthy individuals are cash rich and since there are very few promising investment opportunities aside from equities, they might one day shift their considerable liquid assets into stocks."

Faber, living up to his "Dr. Doom" nickname, told CNBC that he doesn't like any particular asset class, though he said he has a diversified portfolio. "I'm not liquidating everything, but I have a lot of cash."